Without Expiration
by Aiffe
Summary: To expire literally means to breathe. To breathe one’s last breath is also to expire—to die. Normally, the two meanings of this word are mutually exclusive. But for Kohaku, they are mutually elusive. Kohaku x Shiori, twenty years post series.
1. Chapter One

Spoilers: Kohaku spoilers up to the conclusion of the first anime and well into the post-anime arcs of manga. Also contains characters and situations from the fourth movie. (Ai is not my invention. She's as canon as movie-only characters can get.) Also, this story will make next to no sense if you haven't seen the episode 73-74 anime arc, or the corresponding manga chapters: i.e. Shiori's story.

Conversely, this story is AR of chapter 465, as it was started before that was written. If you haven't read that arc, you won't notice the discrepancy. The beginnings of this story are about a year old, and were posted in my livejournal (aiffe) a few months before this was posted here.

* * *

_Chapter One_

* * *

There is a boy at the edge of Shiori's village. He shaves no part of his head as a mark of class. He likes to watch the waves come in. He is not antisocial, and seems amicable enough when spoken to, if a bit terse, but is decidedly _a_social, initiating no contact, never giving a greeting first. He wears something Shiori has finally identified as a burial robe. It's long and black, with a golden insignia over his heart. A complicated garment, with something like a cape trailing behind. He carries a katana at his side, (not two like a samurai, only one, and a long one at that) which is entirely rusted shut, so that it would take a man of far greater strength than this boy seems to possess to draw it, and doing so would probably cause it to crumble. There's no way this boy could have used it; back when it was functional, he would've been far too young to hold such a weapon.

And for a while, this is all she knows about him.

It hurts her to see him. Not because she knows him, or really has much cause for empathy with humanity, but because his stark black figure against the land seems to scream "alone!" which somehow makes seeing an otherworldly figure in a burial robe sadder than it is scary. It's as if he's saying he'll die alone here, or already has. Without doing anything at all, the solitary figure at the edge of Shiori's village has poked and prodded at her greatest fear. When people talk to him, or give him food, she sees the friendly interaction in the distance, and can breathe.

He does move around, but never very far or very fast. He strips to wash his clothes in fresh water, and occasionally builds lean-tos, the decision to do so seeming more based on whim than weather. He has politely declined offers of shelter, though he has accepted food. This seems to have convinced people that he's merely a drifter, possibly a survivor of war, and most likely touched in the head, and not some kind of spirit or apparition. Shiori has more time on her hands than most, though, so she notices things. Like how sometimes they forget to feed him, and it seems to do no harm. She remembers one time when for a span of at least three weeks, everyone assumed someone else was doing it, or he was getting food for himself, and gave him nothing. The boy appeared no weaker, no thinner, and not at all concerned by this oversight.

He wears no more or less depending on the weather, but occasionally strips down to swim. He does so naked, like a child, and no one minds, since they all know he's mad anyway. His body is scarred, and everyone says that they're the marks of blades and arrows. This boy was the victim of no accident or animal. Talk spreads, not that he gives any sign of hearing it.

His attitude grates at her. If she was ever cold to people, it was because she knew they would not accept her, she only preferred isolation to torment. But everyone has pity for this boy, scarred mind and body and clearly _human_, and he's not scared of people, that much is clear… Why does he casually reject companionship? How could he _choose_ such a sad, lonely fate? What's so great about those stupid waves anyway, see one and you've seen them all.

So she goes to him. And she brings food. She already knows that he doesn't need it, but it gives her an excuse to approach him without gawking. (She'd hated being gawked at so.) He takes the offered food, and eats it without rush or appetite, though she knows for a fact that he's fasted the last five days. Close up, he isn't quite what she'd expected. He doesn't have the all-knowing look she'd imagined on a sequestered monk—no closer to enlightenment here. He doesn't look insane, though she supposes one can never truly tell. He doesn't even look sad, which she thinks surprises her the most. Just somewhat resigned and relaxed, like someone who waits for the sun to set so they can go home.

"Do you like it?" she asks tentatively. He hasn't said 'hello' or 'thank you,' which in anyone else she would take as a reaction to her unusual coloring.

"Oh, yes. It's quite nice. Did you make it yourself?"

"Not the food," Shiori says. "This."

He pauses a bit, and takes another bite. When he's finished with it, he says, "I don't know what you mean."

There really is no way to say, "Do you like being alone, do you like being hungry and cold and thought mad by a village that pities you, do you like the view from here so much you'd rather do this than live your life, would you have preferred to look like me, so that people would leave you alone, and you could have more time with your precious ocean?" so Shiori changes tack.

"What's your name?" It occurs to her that no one knows it, and she isn't sure if he's even been asked.

He looks weary at the question, as weary as she must have been when she got "Hanyou!" yelled at her like a revelation for what had to have been the millionth time. He finishes the last of the food, with the air of one completing a performance for another's benefit, and says, "Thanks for the meal."

"I'm sorry," Shiori says, "that was thoughtless of me."

"No, really, it was quite good. With cooking like that, you're sure to be a fine wife."

"Why, would you marry me? Never mind, you're too young." It's a sore point for her. While the village has been slightly easier on her over time as they got used to her, marriage to her is still out of the question.

He only gives her an odd look she isn't sure how to interpret.

"What I meant, was that you've obviously been through a lot, and everyone says you aren't all there, so it was thoughtless of me to ask your name. Since no one knows it by now, I should have considered the possibility that you've forgotten it."

"Oh."

Most people, Shiori knows, got infuriated at this point. "It's like talking to a stone wall," they would say, and blame it on madness, or call him unfriendly. But Shiori's _seen_ unfriendly, and this isn't it. She's had people be disgusted by her, and wish she would go away, but he isn't reacting like that. He's barely reacting at all.

"My name's Shiori. If you can't remember yours, maybe someone could give you one, so you don't feel left out."

"I remember my name," the boy says.

"But you won't tell it to me?"

"I might," the boy says. "But I don't see why it makes any difference."

"Well, it would give me something to call you by," Shiori offers. Why did names have to have a point? Weren't they just there?

"I wouldn't come, you know. It wouldn't do you any good to have a name to call me by."

Shiori thinks. "If you don't use it, you might end up forgetting it."

"That's okay. I'm trying to forget a lot of things."

"If I knew your name, it would make me happy."

"For how long?" he asks, interested.

"I don't know. The whole day!" she declares, throwing her arms out expansively.

"Kohaku."

Shiori blinks.

"You should enjoy that happiness. Days like this are rare." He settles down against the rock, and gazes out over the water.

Shiori _is_ happy for the rest of the day. But maybe it's because she hasn't been happy in so long, she'd just forgotten that happiness feels like wanting to cry.

* * *

What both endears Kohaku to her and frustrates her about him is his complete lack of interest in her. How often could he see a girl with eyes and hair like her? Why doesn't he want to know what she is, and upon finding out, all about her parents, if she has any "powers," when she's human, if she likes it better, and so on and so forth. The sort of questions she has come to associate with a slightly more open mind. He hasn't even asked why she isn't married, or if there's anyone she likes.

What she also finds simultaneously endearing and frustrating is that he doesn't seem to care about himself, either. He must be the only male in the world who has no desire to talk about himself, and he's also the only male in the world she would actually like to hear more about.

There is one thing he seems to be interested in, though. The sea. It's the only constant. So she asks about it.

"Do you see them?" he responds. "Over there, out past the cove." She does see them. A pod of dolphins.

"Ever see one up close, Shiori?"

Shiori shakes her head.

"I've been on the boats that bring them in to shore. Most get killed by the fisherman, because there's competition for the fish. But sometimes, you find one already dead without a mark on it. Especially a baby, after its mother is killed."

"Maybe their hearts stop," Shiori suggests.

"No," he says slowly, "it isn't their hearts. It's like every breath is a choice for them. So they are always deciding whether the next moment is promising enough to take a breath and try to live through it. If they want to die, they just do nothing."

"You make it sound like they're sad all the time."

"Quite the opposite," Kohaku corrects her. "The living ones should be reasonably happy, or at least hopeful."

"When I first saw you, I thought you took the clothes off a dead person out of desperation. But that isn't why, is it?"

"These clothes?" He looks oddly warm then, as though remembering something pleasant. "They were a gift." He doesn't say whether he'd been on the giving or receiving end of that 'gift.'

Shiori leans forward, suddenly passionate, her fists clenching sand. "You don't have to punish yourself!" she tells him. "Whatever you went through, it doesn't mean you have to be alone like this! Anyone here would take you in—I would take you in, though I'd understand if you wanted someone better. There's no reason to force yourself to endure this, after all you've been through."

Kohaku only looks puzzled. "Force? Punish? I came here to rest, not to worry about the past. I'll move along if I'm bothering you, of course..."

But Shiori cannot shake the feeling that Kohaku is unnecessarily tormenting himself. "You survived a war, right?" she says, ashamed to meet his gaze, but determined to dig deeper.

"No."

"It's not something you need to hide. It's normal, these days. And anyway, anyone can tell by looking that your scars were made by weapons."

Kohaku smiles, an odd, knowing smile with his eyes closed as if in pain. "Does it still show so much?" he asks. "I think of it as being so long ago. I don't have any new scars, you know. But I suppose they aren't ever going to fade."

"So you _were_ in a war."

"I'm not sure you could call it a war. A feud, maybe, or a vendetta." He hesitates. "It isn't hard to find tales of tragedy these days. I doubt it ever was, really. I don't know why you're so keen on my scars. Half the men in your village are scarred from something or other. I've already given you my name, but I don't think there's anything else I can say to you that will bring you happiness. I'm sorry for that, but I'm sorry for a lot of things anyway."

"So you're just going to bottle it up and feel sorry for yourself?" Shiori asks. "People need to rely on other people. How do you think we get through hard things like this? Even if your story is very, very sad, even if it makes me cry, I want to know about it, because I like you. If it isn't... if it isn't too soon to be talking about it. I don't want to force you, but I—" She puts her hand on his arm, in a gesture that's half comforting, half possessive. She waits to see if he will relax under her touch, or try to brush her off, but he does neither. He's so unresponsive that at first she thinks he must not feel her there through his clothes, and grips harder and harder in increments, until she has to make herself stop, sure that she must be hurting him.

And as an answer to her impassioned entreaty to open up to her, he merely shakes his head. Shiori isn't sure what he's negating. He rises to his feet in an easy, fluid motion, and walks away from her. There's no rush or tension to his step—he could just as easily be inviting her to follow as trying to escape her.

She goes home for the night, and when she looks for him the next morning, she finds his footprints everywhere, but cannot find him.

* * *

The morning is overcast. Shiori paces the beach where Kohaku usually stays, growing more and more frantic. She pushed him too hard, she knows, she asked too much of him, and he left.

He went someplace where no one would ever make the mistake of caring about him again, and he could be as lonely as he liked.

She thinks, hopes, that that was the thought that made her cry. She would rather cry for someone else than for herself.

Experience has taught her not to cry where anyone but her mother can see. Even though the beach is empty, she hides herself in a bit of bramble, and cries as she has not cried for years, not since the first time she realized that the other children had a future and she didn't, not since the time when things stopped mattering to her.

She exhausts herself easily this way. And so, she dreams.

There is a monster in her dreams. There always is. It's the monster everyone else sees when they look at her, the monster within herself. She isn't afraid of it.

In her dreams, she can fly. And in her dreams, when she cries out, she can see.

So she sees beneath the receding waves, down, into a place those who rely on light would never see. And down there, she sees Kohaku, fully clothed, looking up at the blinding light of the surface.

He isn't breathing, Shiori realizes with a shock. And with another, she knows that he isn't dead.

The third shock comes slowly and with dread. She knows that he isn't alive, either. Living people do not lie beneath the waves, calmly not breathing. She's suspected, but it had seemed too terrible a thought to entertain.

She wakes to the delicate patter of a light rain on her skin.

Rain falls in veils, and she feels as if she could push them aside and step into the sun. Far out over the sea, it is bright and sunny; the storm has nearly spent itself. She commiserates, feeling a fatigue that is not physical, but weighs heavily on her steps.

Her bare feet pad slowly out to the sea, which, being at low tide, takes a bit longer to reach. On the way, she crosses the part of the shore that's usually underwater, suddenly laid bare and vulnerable. The water is cold, but not bitterly so. The ground gives way only gradually, so that she has walked out a long way before the water is high enough that merely hiking up her skirts is not enough, and she will have to get her clothes wet to go on. She hesitates, deciding, the glare of the distant sun seeming to add to her haze, combined with the white noise of tiny droplets of rain hitting the water's surface.

In that moment, she feels both lonely and peaceful; troubled yet insignificant. The falling rain washes her face, so that she doesn't feel the grime of having just cried herself to sleep, though the fatigue and clarity remain. She finally decides that it doesn't matter if her clothes get wet—she's wet enough from rain anyway—when she realizes that Kohaku has been watching her stand there, unnoticed.

Through the shimmer of the disturbed water, she sees him: fully clothed in billowing black, gazing back at her with something not even remotely like fear or disappointment. She can't place that expression—curiosity? surprise?—because she's thrown by what it _isn't_. How could he have come to be here, if he was not hurt or frightened by her?

They just stay like that, Shiori with her fists holding her kimono above the water, long after she's soaked through from the rain and it has ceased to make any sense, and Kohaku, his robes floating in the waves like some otherworldly thing, watching her calmly when he should be drowning, dead when he should be dying. Only their eyes meet through the shaky film of the surface.

And Shiori finds that, after all that, she has nothing to say.


	2. Chapter Two

_Chapter Two_

* * *

They step into Shiori's hut, soaking wet, Kohaku squelching with every step. Outside, the sun is shining brightly, and gaining in strength. It may even be warm by afternoon.

"Quiet, though, because my mother may be sleeping," Shiori whispers. "Take your wet clothes off," she adds softly.

Kohaku puts his hand to the first frog-clasp near his neck, and hesitates.

"Don't worry. I'll get something for you to change into. Even though you're a boy, you're about the same size as me. Probably a little smaller," she says in hushed tones. She goes off to find something, and comes back in different clothes, a simple white robe in her arms. Kohaku has nearly completely undressed by then. She doesn't think his slowness is due to reluctance, but the complexities of the garment, exacerbated by the fact that wet things cling.

"Not like I haven't seen you before," she says at Kohaku's slight blush when she approaches.

"There isn't much to see, I guess," Kohaku concedes. "A body of only eleven summers cannot be obscene." Despite saying this, he turns from her as he takes the robe, and leaves his wet loincloth on.

"Is that how old you are?"

"No."

Shiori chews on that a moment. "I'm twenty-eight," she says at last. "Or twenty-nine... I'm really terrible at keeping track. Maybe Mom would remember. I don't look it though, do I?"

"Not at all. I'd have taken you for sixteen," Kohaku says, seeming to look harder at her. "Then again, _he_ was the same way. If he did get old, it was slower than everyone else. I couldn't tell."

"He?"

"Another hanyou I knew, a friend of my sister's."

"But not your friend?" Shiori asks cautiously.

"We never really got to know each other. The few times I met him, he seemed all right."

"Take your loincloth off, it'll soak through your dry clothes."

Kohaku does, seemingly annoyed, though whether with her or himself, she can't tell. He tosses it on top of his other clothes, which lie in a wet, sandy heap. "I should really hang those," Kohaku mutters.

"With sand in them? They have to be washed first."

However, neither of them feels particularly inspired to do laundry, so there the clothes remain.

"Look, Shiori," he says in a more serious tone, looking her in the eye. She looks at that painfully young face of his, and wonders how old he _really_ is. She doubts he'd tell her. "I don't want you to become... infatuated with me."

"Infatuated?" Shiori repeats. "Just because I like you, doesn't mean..."

"I didn't come here to be liked. I came here to be alone, where no one would remember me. And if you won't forget about me, I'll go somewhere else."

"Is my company so bad?" Shiori asks, stricken.

Kohaku touches her cheek lightly, though his hand is very cold. From being under the water like that, Shiori tells herself. His body wasn't this cold before. "You told me once," he says softly, "that you wanted to hear about me, even if it made you cry. But those tears would be wasted, because that story's already over. I'm just stuck in it for some reason, like being unable to leave the stage even after the lights are out and everyone else has gone home. I'm trying to be kind to you. You deserve kindness."

Not knowing what possesses her, Shiori hugs him. "Even if I do," she responds, barely audible, "why should it start now?"

* * *

The have spoken very little as they washed out their clothes in fresh water, and hung them to dry in the last of the sun. Now that their work is almost complete, they hesitate, wondering what comes next. Shiori is determined not to let him sleep out in the open without even his usual warm robes. But there's—

"Shiori?" a voice from inside the house calls.

"Mom!" Shiori calls back. "I have a friend over!"

"A friend?" Shiori's mother asks, coming through the doorway holding a large knife. "What kind of friend?"

Shiori looks at Kohaku nervously, but Kohaku appears unbothered by the knife. "A good friend," Shiori says."

Shiori's mother looks at the black robes hung up to dry, and lowers the knife, carefully. "That insignia," she says. "In gold and red. I've seen it before."

"Where?" Shiori asks, turning to look at the insignia, her mother, and finally Kohaku. It had given her a sort of déjà vu as well, but she hadn't thought much about it.

"It was my sister's," Kohaku says. "But that was years and years ago."

"Sango, right?" Shiori's mother asks.

Kohaku gives a slight nod.

Shiori whips around. "You know his sister?" she asks her mother.

"You did, too," she replies. "She was with that group that saved you from your grandfather."

Shiori probes the distant memory, blurred by time and emotion. There had been two women, she recalls. One had been nice to her, and the other had sort of hung back, behind the scenes. Shiori remembers that she bumped into her leg once, and it had been as hard as iron. The insignia...

"You'll have to forgive me," Shiori's mother says, putting the knife in her sash. "It's not often that we have friends here, but it wouldn't have been the first time I've had to defend my Shiori." She runs a hand through her hair, now streaked with white. Soon she and her daughter will match.

"And yet you trust me so easily?" Kohaku asks. "Did you know my sister well? Did she tell you about me?"

"Not really," Shiori's mother admits, "but they seemed like decent people. And they weren't prejudiced against hanyou."

"For all you know, my sister was Inuyasha's lover. And I killed her for it, and took back the sign of our clan," Kohaku says. Shiori gasps at this, but her mother seems unaffected.

"It could be, but I doubt it," she says. "For one thing, you weren't afraid of my knife. You knew you weren't doing anything wrong."

"Or that it couldn't hurt me," Kohaku smoothly replies. "But," he adds, barely suppressing a chuckle, "you are quite right about my character. My sister was never Inuyasha's lover, though if she was, I would never have harmed her for it. Though," he says, considering, "I would have to question her taste more than I already do. Inuyasha is not as well-mannered as the fine girl you have raised here."

Shiori blushes, and her mother beams. "And what would your intentions be towards this fine young lady, then?"

"Nothing but a pleasant dream, forgotten upon waking," Kohaku says with a bow. "I was just leaving, as soon as my clothes dried."

"Such a shame," Shiori's mother says. "You may be young yet to court Shiori, but you look like you'd grow up to be such a fine young man."

"A shame indeed," Kohaku agrees, looking over the sea as the bats begin their nocturnal flights, his expression indescribable.

* * *

"I don't really drink," Kohaku tells Shiori's mother, nervously looking back outside as if he was thinking he ought to be going.

"Come now. One drink, to what might have been, and never shall be. If you don't drink to that, what _will_ you drink to?"

Kohaku takes the drink, and gulps it down. "Blech," he says.

"_Can_ you get drunk?" Shiori asks.

"I really have no idea. Probably," he answers. "Ugh, this tastes terrible."

"That's why it's great to drink when you're miserable," Shiori's mother says.

"If that were true, most people would drink it every day," Kohaku says. "Though wanting to do that is difficult to imagine. No, really, no more, I'm fine... well, if you must," he protests, as his cup is refilled.

"You'll have to pardon my late arrival," Shiori's mother says. "I've taken to sleeping in the daytime—an old habit, from when Shiori's father was alive. I know it's pointless now that he's gone, but it's not like there's anyone in the daytime I want to see."

"Shiori's awake in the day," Kohaku points out.

"Eh, Shiori sleeps whenever she wants to," Shiori's mother says. "It's her prerogative. She hasn't decided what she wants to be, yet." She fixes Kohaku with a meaningful stare that neither Shiori nor Kohaku understand.

"I didn't know I had options," Shiori says, calmly sipping her wine.

"But you two may be wanting to sleep soon," Shiori's mother says thoughtfully. "What have you been up to all day, anyhow?

"Swimming," Kohaku offers, before Shiori can say anything.

"In your clothes?"

"Would you prefer we swam naked?" Shiori throws in, enjoying the cover-up.

"You'll tell me what you want to, I suppose." She pauses. "What does that insignia mean, anyway? Is it a family crest?"

"Something like that," Kohaku answers. "It's the 'hope' of the family. Though in this case, that's a joke, and a sad one."

"What do you mean?" Shiori asks.

"My family," Kohaku begins warily, "are—were—youkai exterminators by trade. It isn't like we killed all youkai just for being youkai, but the ones that ran wild and were harmful... well, ordinary people didn't have a chance against them. So we just balanced things out, see."

"Did you kill youkai too?" Shiori asks. It's impossible to tell from her expression whether or not this would bother her.

"A few," Kohaku admits. "But," he laughs, "I've always been a terrible fighter. Ever since I was little, it seems that someone or other's always been trying to make a great warrior out of me, but I'm just not cut out for it." He pauses. "It isn't funny, really, I suppose. A lot of people were killed. But when I look at it that way, it seems terribly amusing.

"But anyway," he continues, "the insignia is for the heir apparent. The person who will succeed the current leader, either through skill or lineage—in my sister's case, both—and whose children, in turn, will receive the best training and have an advantage in the tribe. It's a very brave thing to wear, or at least it was back when my tribe was known and feared, because it's like putting on a target. Yours would be the death that the youkai taijiya would grieve the most, and the youkai will aim for you. Everyone had to be very sure before they allowed my sister to wear it."

"But why _would_ you want to paint a target on the most beloved of your tribe?" Shiori asks.

"They don't get to be heir apparent on looks alone, you know," Kohaku says. "The person wearing that insignia is a skilled fighter, second only—maybe—to the leader of the taijiya. They _want_ the youkai to go for that person."

"So how did you get it, if you're such a terrible fighter?"

"Process of elimination." He frowns. "Oh, really, I don't need more wine. Have you been refilling my cup all this time?" he asks Shiori's mother.

"You were telling us how you got the insignia," Shiori's mother says.

"Ah, yes," Kohaku replies, absent-mindedly sipping his wine. "My sister is undoubtedly the best warrior of the family. But she's still only human, you know, and she takes on so much. Near the end of our travels together, she got into a bad fight and broke her arm. She took it very well; I didn't even realize what had happened until I saw the way it was hanging. I wanted to find Ki—a miko we knew who was talented in healing, but we were near a village, so everyone else decided to go see the doctor there."

Shiori nods. "If her arm was broken, why make her travel all the way back to see a certain miko? Shouldn't she at least get a splint on it from the village doctor?"

"Ah, but Kikyou might have been closer," Kohaku says with a vague look in his eyes. "She's always around when you need her. I think _I_ could have found her, had I been permitted to look."

"So you went to this village doctor."

"Yes. And with some trepidation. We'd been through this village not long before, and heard rumors about this doctor. The villagers said they were afraid to see her, because she looks right through you, and tells you how you're going to die. But Inuyasha pointed out that we were all going to die at some point anyway, and it wouldn't hurt either way to know. Houshi-sama wasn't so sure, and he seemed to think that it was tempting fate in some way, because you would then try to avoid your death, and probably end up bringing it about. But Aneue was in pain, and that decided it for us.

"The idea of a doctor that could see things that way unnerved me. I didn't go in, so I didn't hear what was said. But Aneue said afterwards that though the doctor didn't say how she would die, as she set the bone and applied the splint, she informed her that because of an old injury, she would probably be unable to have children."

"So she didn't want the insignia after that?"

"It wasn't like that at all. But the insignia had changed meaning for us. From the 'hope' to the only hope, the last hope. Her children were going to be the ones to carry on the line of our proud people. Not enough to repopulate the village, but something. So of course she wasn't going to take some fortune-telling doctor's word for it. But once the seed of doubt was sown in her mind, it gave her no peace. So even though the man she loved was still cursed, and even though that curse would affect any children conceived, she tried to make a child with him, just to prove that she could."

"What kind of curse was it?"

Kohaku shudders. "Emptiness. I'll never forget it. It's broken now, but they have no children. The doctor was right. Aneue led too hard a life for a woman's body. And it may even be—no, it wasn't because of that night. She was struck between the shoulderblades, it couldn't have." He puts his head down on his hands, running his fingers through his bangs. "This is why I didn't want to talk. It all comes down to the same thing. Even when I try to remember better times." Shiori sees a tear run down his forearm.

"Are you all right?" she asks.

Kohaku laughs, a cruel, hiccuping laugh through tears. "The farthest thing from it, the farthest thing."

"You don't have to go on, if you—"

"No, the story's done anyway." He looks up, wiping his face clean on his sleeve. "She couldn't make a child. So she pinned that insignia to my chest, and told me I was the hope now, and I'd have to grow up strong. But then, I think she still thought she could save me, the way she saved her Houshi-sama."

"How many years ago was that?" Shiori's mother asks shrewdly.

Kohaku doesn't meet her gaze. "Too many."

* * *

The reed door of their hut is not tied down, and none of them bother to do so because the night is fairly warm, and they have the fire to chase away any chills. Though the wine is already doing an admirable job of that, and several bottles lie empty before the night is through. At times, a strong wind will blow, and sand will scatter onto the floor, glittering in the moonlight, before the wind dies down and the doorflap lies flat again.

"My clothes will get sandy again," Kohaku notes, after one particularly magnificent gust.

Shiori shrugs. "Everything's sandy here. You were living on the beach, so they must have already been like that. You just beat them out when they dry. And I hung them pretty high, so it shouldn't be too bad."

"I'm sorry, about before," Kohaku says. "I think it was the wine."

"You _are_ drunk," Shiori says playfully, elbowing him.

Kohaku looks at his cup in consternation. "I think I am." He seems to realize something. "You too."

"Yup."

"So," he ventures hopefully, "maybe you won't remember any of this in the morning?"

"Silly, I'm not _that_ drunk."

"Oh. I don't really know how these things work."

Shiori stretches out on the mat. Her mother is preparing a meal: a vegetable stew of some kind. "Well, it's hitting us harder because we did it on an empty stomach. When's the last time you ate, anyway?"

"That time you cooked for me, I think."

"That was days ago." She rolls over onto her stomach, not really surprised. "I saw that you were like that before. I wondered for a while if you might be a hanyou, like me. Sometimes it shows only a little. Sometimes it shows a _lot_. So I couldn't be sure."

"Nope," Kohaku replies. "I'm human, I know that much." Shiori nods at this.

"So, do you have drunken parties like this every night?" Kohaku asks. "How can you afford it?"

"It's true that we don't have much money," Shiori says. "We don't spend much either; we fish, and have a nice garden. Sometimes if I want some money for a new kimono or something, I'll catch enough fish to sell, or make jewelry out of shells, or do odd jobs around the town. The villagers aren't terribly nice to us, but they tolerate us, and I can get work when I need to because I'm stronger than a man. Sometimes if there's extra, we'll pick up something special, like the wine." She looks at the empty bottles. "My, we really had a lot, didn't we? Most of that had to have been you. Mom kept refilling your cup, and I couldn't believe how much you drank. I'm amazed you're still able to sit up straight."

"I didn't want to be impolite," Kohaku says sheepishly. "But I haven't imposed, have I? I never meant to take so much, when you can hardly afford any."

Shiori gives his hand a friendly squeeze. "Don't worry about it."

They drowse a little and eat a little, drifting happily between light sleep and heavy waking. The floor mats are cool and forgiving, and from there they watch the reeds in the ceiling fade into distant landscapes in the language of dreams.

"I dreamt I was home," Kohaku murmurs between one waking and the next.

"You could be, if you wanted to," Shiori tells him, but she doesn't think he hears her.

* * *

In morning, Shiori leads Kohaku out to a small fishing dinghy. "You don't have to walk along the bottom of the sea, you know," she tells him. "I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

As they gain momentum off the shore, Kohaku guiltily tries to take over the oars, but Shiori persists. "It's all right, I'm used to it," she tells him.

"I feel strange, just sitting here while a girl does all the work," he confesses.

"But I'm practiced, and stronger than you anyway," she rationalizes. "Besides, your sister never did anything for you?"

Kohaku smiles. "She probably would have rowed the boat too. But with her, it wouldn't have been strange."

"I like to row," Shiori says. "So, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go?"

"I was going to leave yesterday," Kohaku says, looking somewhat sundazzled. His clothes, now dry, pool out around him, soaking up heat. Shiori has to resist the urge to touch him and see if the sun has made him much warmer now.

"Yes, but by sea, on foot?"

"Traceless. And how I came here, as well."

"No wonder your sword's rusted," Shiori remarks.

"I've not had occasion to draw it in some time," he says. "Which suits me fine." He doesn't look at the sword or touch it self-consciously at its mention.

They just drift a while in the sparkling sea, the dinghy going in slow, wide circles. They rest against the creaking wood, and Shiori casts her nets, though catches very little. "I meant it, you know," Shiori says after a long time's silence. "I'll really take you anywhere you want to go. And I won't follow unless you want me to."

"My own legs are quite capable," Kohaku says, "but yesterday they didn't walk away. I stopped when the water was only nearing my hips, and sank down into the water. I wanted you to think I was gone, but I didn't want to leave."

Shiori lets that statement hang for a while in the amber morning light. "We could have been in love," she says at last, so softly it's as if she hopes he won't hear her.

Kohaku dips his hand in the water as he drifts in slow, backwards circles, trailing a long, black sleeve. "In a better world," he says, looking unflinchingly into the sun. "I think so too."

They wander aimlessly for hours, until at the peak of the day's heat, they seek shelter at shore, the same shore they started from.


	3. Chapter Three

AN: This is the last chapter, and completes the story.

* * *

_Chapter Three_

* * *

As they stumble onto the shock of solid ground, Shiori's few meager fish clutched in a small net, Kohaku stiffens and looks intently at the stand of bramble near the shore off to one side. Shiori notices, and focuses in that direction as well.

"There's someone there, isn't there?" Shiori whispers to Kohaku.

Kohaku frowns. "I'm not sure," he says, relaxing a bit. "I thought so, but I'm always jumping at shadows. Do you sense anything?"

"It can't be what I think," Shiori says. "I must be mistaken."

"Why, what do you think it is?"

Shiori fidgets, looking embarrassed. "Another hanyou."

But there's a crashing sound, and out from the bramble emerges a young woman in a short yukata, her disheveled hair not able to hide ears which resemble fins.

"Ai!" Kohaku exclaims, astonished.

Ai's eyes widen first with shock, then recognition. She seems to be drawing breath to shout to someone behind her, but never gets the chance. In an instant, Kohaku is on her, his legs carefully locking hers, one hand restraining her, and the other over her mouth.

Shiori can see that the strange woman carries weapons which she presumably knows how to use, and that her brief struggle with Kohaku showed evidence of martial training. And, to her dismay, how easily Kohaku was able to overcome her. He'd told her that he'd never been a good fighter, but she can see clearly that this is not the truth. In Kohaku's movements, she can see the body of a fearsome assassin, a killer that few stand a chance against. She is grateful to see that at least Kohaku's expression is not ruthless, but wide-eyed and frightened.

"If you're here," Kohaku says, "it means that _she_ can't be far behind. Isn't that right?" They are a strange sight to behold, Kohaku holding Ai close, and both looking scared witless of each other. Ai nods her head furiously and struggles again, but is thwarted.

"I...I'm going to let you go now," Kohaku says, "but you mustn't scream. If you do, I'll have to take you with me wherever I go, and you'll never see the people you love again. Understand?" Again, Ai nods, looking close to tears with panic. Kohaku releases her.

Ai falls to her hands and knees, catching her breath. "Who is she?" Shiori asks, standing back a little with her bundle of fish.

"An old acquaintance of mine," Kohaku answers, and to Ai: "You mustn't tell her. If I let you go back, it has to be as if this never happened."

"She wouldn't believe me anyway!" Ai says, incredulous. "You died! You're dead!"

"Nothing has changed," Kohaku says.

"No!" Ai shouts. "We buried you, we put you in the ground! I've put flowers on your grave for years!"

Kohaku seems to soften at this. "That was very nice of you."

"I've lost my mind," Ai says. "That's the only explanation." She gropes about the ground as though she had only dropped her mind, and could expect to find it again.

"This is what I was afraid of," Kohaku says. "If I stayed in one place too long, if I formed attachments, they might all find me."

"It doesn't have to be that way yet," Shiori says, catching on fast. "So far, Ai's the only one who knows."

"And she'll tell the first person she sees, I know her," Kohaku replies. "She couldn't bear a heavy secret like this one. What am I to do! Shiori, you don't know how to erase memory, by any chance?"

"You are _not_ messing with my head!" Ai objects. "I won't allow it!"

"Sorry, that isn't something I can do," Shiori says.

"Why is this a secret, anyway? Sango-nee-chan loves you. It would be a happy reunion if she saw you again," Ai says.

" 'Sango-nee-chan'?" Kohaku repeats. "So, has she already found someone else to follow her around and call her sister?"

Ai looks at him, dismayed. "What _happened_ to you, anyway?"

"Not a day goes by that I don't ask myself that," Kohaku says bitterly.

* * *

Kohaku takes Ai's hand. "Shiori, grab the other one," he says.

"But, I—" Shiori says, put on the spot. Kohaku gives her a pleading, desperate look, and against her better judgement, she takes Ai's free hand, though keeping a firm grip on her net of fish.

"Are we going back to my place?" Shiori asks as Kohaku starts off at a brisk walk.

"Do you have a better idea?" Kohaku replies.

"And what are you going to do once you get me there? Sango-nee-chan will notice that I'm gone. It's not like you could tie me up and keep me there forever."

Kohaku closes his eyes as if wincing with pain. "Dammit. No matter what I do... eventually I'll have to let Ai go, and once I do, it won't matter if I run. I swore my presence in this world would never trouble Aneue again. If she knows, she'll think of nothing else."

"Why!" Ai demands, lagging slightly against their tugging on her hands. "Why can't she know?" Shiori says nothing, but she had wondered this as well.

"You were there! Don't you remember the pain I caused her?" Kohaku says to her, his voice twisted in distress. "The sleepless nights? How she would cry for seemingly no reason, how she was always gazing away, into the wilderness, into the stars, as if she could find me there? Can you tell me she hasn't been happier since she grieved for me and moved on?"

"But that was all because she was afraid for you, because she couldn't be near you," Ai says. "If you were together again, it would bring her joy."

Kohaku shakes his head. "You don't understand anything. Even if I stayed by her side, her little brother would still be long dead, and I would just be a reminder. You don't want that for her!"

"Hush!" Shiori says in a sharp hiss, her sudden stop yanking on Ai's arm.

They can just see Shiori's house through a few sun-bleached reeds, and barely hear two voices. Shiori's mother says something, then another voice speaks, one which makes Kohaku grip Ai's arm with his other hand, and cover her mouth again. Shiori looks over at him, astonished. She never thought that she would see his calm, unperturbable face in such agony.

"It's funny that you should show up just when I was reminded of you," Shiori's mother says. Their voices are coming from outside, on the other side of the house. Kohaku starts as if to run over there, but hangs onto Ai, torn. If his heart can beat, Shiori thinks, it must be pounding now.

"Reminded of me?" the other voice says. "After all these years?"

"I saw that old red-and-gold crest of yours," Shiori's mother says, and that decides it for Kohaku. He drops Ai's arm and bolts towards the hut.

"But what will you do?" Shiori calls after him. Kohaku slows in mid-run, as if struck by this, but continues.

"I suppose that's why you came," Shiori's mother continues. "Because your little brother Kohaku is here."

Kohaku falls to the ground and skids in the sand. He lies there, trembling, as Sango's words pass over him. "That's impossible! Don't say that... it's cruel."

"You... didn't know?" Shiori's mother says.

Kohaku scrambles to his feet, and presses himself against the wall of the house. Shiori can see her mother and Sango walk out from behind the house on the other side. "It can't be," Sango says. "My brother is dead."

"I didn't say he wasn't," Shiori's mother says. "But he _is_ here."

Kohaku takes off running, in the opposite direction of Sango. Shiori hesitates, then goes after him. Ai, unguarded, immediately runs to Sango. Shiori pauses when she looks back and sees this, but only redoubles her efforts to reach Kohaku.

* * *

"Kohaku!" she calls, when she's sure they're far away enough that Sango won't hear them. "Kohaku, wait!"

Kohaku continues on as if he hasn't heard. They've come to the rocky part of the shore, and Shiori stumbles on the crags. Kohaku seems as sure-footed as ever, and not at all worried by the sheer drop into the sea off to one side of him.

"Don't go that way!" Shiori calls, short of breath. She's always considered herself a strong runner, but Kohaku is making her go faster than she's gone in years. She doesn't feel safe going at these speeds over terrain like this.

Kohaku jumps down off the cliff, landing easily on a ledge far below. Shiori looks down, feeling nowhere near brave enough to try such a thing, but continuing to follow from above. "Running into the bat's cove won't help you!" Shiori shouts down at him. "You'll anger them, and innocent people will die!"

Finally, he stops.

Not a moment too soon, Shiori thinks. The island of the bats looms ahead, the dark cave opening clearly visible.

"It's too late to run away," Shiori calls down. "We have to face the situation."

Kohaku does not respond, but presses his back to the side of the cliff to look up at her.

"I'm going to come around to where you are," Shiori announces. "Just stay there." Not without misgivings, Shiori starts off at a run again back along the side of the cliff. Short of jumping, the only viable way down is back the way they came, where the path splits off. Of course, by the time she gets to where Kohaku is, he could have gone into the sea, where she would never find him. But then, he could have done that at any point before, too.

So it is with some relief that she finds him still there on the stone ledge. He's sitting with his legs dangling over the water, looking somewhat calmer.

"I've pulled you in this with me, haven't I?" Kohaku says, without looking at her.

"No. I followed you of my own free will."

"Well, then, it was stupid of you. I can't protect you."

Shiori sits down next to him. "I'm stupid, then."

"Won't you walk away from this?"

Shiori shakes her head. "Even if you can't protect me," she says, "if you tell me what's going on, I might at least be able to protect myself."

Kohaku sighs. "It's all caught up to me, hasn't it. And here I thought this place looked so peaceful. I looked into your face, and thought there might be some rest for me yet."

"Maybe this is best," Shiori says sagely. "Maybe you'll find some closure to your problems, and be able to really relax without worrying about them, without running away."

"That would be nice," Kohaku says, and takes a deep breath before beginning. "When I was eleven years old, everyone in my village, except for my sister, was killed by the scheme of a hanyou named Naraku."

"A hanyou?" Shiori asks.

"Not like you or Ai," Kohaku says. "An unnatural merging of a man and several hundred youkai. The slaughter of my village was orchestrated in order to taint a sacred jewel, the Shikon no Tama. The more evil deeds he poured into it, the more powerful it became in his wicked hands. And so everyone was killed, save for my sister, who was wounded and left for dead."

"So that's why she thinks you're dead?" Shiori asks uncertainly. "You haven't seen her since that time?"

Kohaku shakes his head. "It's difficult, for me. When I tell this story, I can't help but leave lies of omission. There are some things too painful, too shameful..." he trails off. "But if I am going to retell such a thing, I must do it justice. It is true that Naraku killed my people. It is also true that I killed many of them, and that I was the one who left my sister on the brink of death, that night. It was the last thing I did in my life."

Shiori's breath comes fast in shock. "No, you're not like that," she says. "Maybe he got you to think that, but I know you wouldn't do such a thing."

"I know that too," Kohaku says. "It wasn't my will. But it was what I watched myself do. I don't know why Naraku chose me to possess. If I was weaker in some way than the others, or had within me some taint that he could use. When the men Naraku had deceived into serving him decided I had gone mad and shot me, I welcomed it.

"But then Aneue recovered, and rebelled against Naraku. And Naraku woke me with a shard of that jewel. He intended me to be a monster without conscience, whose sole purpose was to hurt Aneue, and that's what I became. And during that time is when I committed my worst sins, because I chose to let Naraku use me. I could have resisted him at any time, but if I served him well, he made me forget. Forget everything—my family, my pain, my own name. Such a complete obliteration was the closest I could come to death, and while I was there, I didn't care that I killed entire villages, that I killed mothers with their babies. It was forgotten the instant the blow was struck.

"That, I think, is when Aneue began to hate me, as well as love me."

"But you did fight this Naraku, eventually." Shiori says.

"I left him. And ultimately, I let others fight him with my life. But don't delude yourself into thinking I was a hero under adversity. I was a pawn the whole way. I didn't do anything for Naraku that he or one of his minions couldn't have done, except that by having me do it, the jewel shard became tainted. On my own, I wandered, and achieved nothing. With Kikyou-sama, I felt most at ease, but the purpose was merely to purify the jewel shard. To defeat Naraku, the shard was removed, and I died again." He slips the left shoulder off his robes. "You can still see the scar where it was. It's the only one of my scars from a wound made after my death."

Shiori runs her hand over the skin there. "You keep talking about dying, and being dead," she says. "But your skin is warm, and I can see you breathing. You don't smell like a dead thing to me."

Kohaku looks at her gently. "You're just like her. You think that because I can sit here and talk with you that I'm somehow still salvageable. Aneue kept seeing me long after she knew that I was dead, and even if it was with a bloody blade in my hand, and destruction in my wake, she felt certain that there was a way to reclaim me, to take back part of what she lost the night I died. And it was that misconception that led her to do the cruelest thing she ever did to me. When the Shikon Jewel was reclaimed, our enemy defeated, and my body was in their possession, Aneue begged Kagome-sama, a girl travelling with her who possessed spiritual powers, to restore me. And for twenty years, they were meant to believe that that effort had failed."

Shiori sits there staring at him, stunned. "You let them bury you."

"I didn't just leave, afterwards. I spied on them, just to make sure that they were all right. At first, Aneue didn't react much, and I thought that all her tears for me had already been wept. But then something snapped, and she cried all the time, calling for me. One time it was almost too much, and I nearly went to her. But all her friends were there, comforting her, and she swallowed her tears and said, 'It's better this way.' Just like that. After that, she settled more and more into the rhythms of life, and I began to realize that she was happy at last. She didn't need me anymore, so I left, and tried to find what peace I could."

Shiori cannot shake the image of Kohaku lying there, without making a sound, as the people who love him most bury him. She sees him in her mind's eye, perfectly still, not even drawing breath, and unafraid. She is helpless to stop the tears that come at that image.

"Why?" Kohaku asks softly, looking near tears himself. "You had a choice, to go about your life and find happiness, or to be dragged down by my old problems. There was no reason for you to choose me, so why, of your own will..."

Shiori gasps for breath between the sobs, and struggles to say, "Don't you understand? It doesn't matter how it looks to you. This is what I want, my heart's desire. And if I feel this way after only having known you for a short time, how must your sister feel?"

"But," Kohaku cannot help but object, "she was happier after I died."

"That was meaningless," Shiori says, her voice doing little more than riding the sobs on their way out. "She may have seemed happy, but it was all meaningless. I know she would give it all up in a heartbeat to hold you again."

"She doesn't have a choice," Kohaku says glumly. "Your mother told her, and Ai will be sure to back that up."

Shiori's sobs slow, as she seems to realize something. "You resent her."

"Your mother, or Ai?"

"Neither. Sango-san. You're angry with her for being happier without you. For letting you bring her pain."

Now Kohaku's face is twisted with misery. "Letting me? You have no idea what I did to her. A bodhisattva would have hated me."

"A bodhisattva, maybe. But not your sister."

"But she did," Kohaku says, choking a little. "In the end, she knew she was better off with me gone. It was the truth, I know that. I can't blame her for seeing it."

"So you felt betrayed by her, and punished her by pretending to be dead."

Kohaku smiles wanly. "Not _pretending_. Just embellishing a little."

"Semantics. You know what you did."

"Can't you accept that it was done in altruism? That rather than punishing her for her own humanity, I understood it, and knew that my presence could bring her nothing but pain? What I did...letting Aneue think I was gone...that was mercy."

"For her, or for you?"

"I think," Kohaku says, "that it was both. She wasn't the only one who felt pain when we were together."

"Then I think that I have the solution," Shiori says.

"Do you, now," Kohaku says, with the air of someone who is very familiar with his own private hell.

"That's right. All I need to do is kill Sango-san, and Kohaku will have a chance to be happy." With that, she rises to her feet. Kohaku is up and barring her path in a flash.

"You can't! How did you even come such a conclusion! I won't allow it!"

"So you love your sister," Shiori says, looking at him coyly.

"_Yes,_" Kohaku answers as if the word could break him.

"But you don't want to see her sometimes, and there's pain in your relationship."

"Haven't you been listening? That's what I just said."

"So it's okay to kill her, then. You're better off with her dead."

Kohaku grips her arm. "I don't want to hurt you, Shiori, and I know you think you mean well, but you must drop this foolishness immediately. Nothing would pain me more than her death." His eyes look fiercely into hers, and Shiori smiles.

"So finally, you understand how your sister feels. I'm glad."

Kohaku falls to the ground as if struck. "You—you just said those things to make me see..."

"No matter what else was wrong with your relationship, she didn't want to lose you, Kohaku. I know that."

Kohaku looks up at her, uncertain. "How could you know such a thing?"

"Because I, also..." Shiori breaks off, shakes her head as if to clear it, and tries again, looking at him with her face twisted with tears that still need to be cried, but her jaw set, and Kohaku thinks that despite the pain in her face, it's almost a smile—"Because I also love you." She drops down to her knees and puts her hands over his. "And even if what we could have had was taken from us, I want to be near you, to protect you."

"Shiori, I... appreciate your feelings, but, you understand, I cannot become a man, not even for you." He reaches out with one hand, trembling just a little, and runs his fingers through her hair. "Please, understand, with my tenderest feelings, that I am—was—a boy who died when you were still a child. Though that little boy was revived, the man he should have become was lost forever. I fear that it is him you long for, and you cannot help but become dissatisfied with me."

"I don't know what you're talking about. There's only one Kohaku. Of course I would have loved for you to have become a man, because no one likes to see people they care about hurt. But because you were wronged, this does not lessen my feelings for you, or make you less of a person in my eyes!"

"What would we do, then," Kohaku asks, his voice filled with dark humor. "Would we ape life, pretending to be like any other couple, aside from my 'little problem'? I cannot die, Shiori, but I cannot live either. I cannot father children on you, and I cannot be the hope of my tribe. Do not think me unwilling, or suppose that I hold back out of self-pity." He moves forward suddenly to kiss Shiori, and pulls back with his cheeks wet with her tears. "But for me, what I do out of love more closely resembles cruelty."

* * *

"The sun will be setting soon," Shiori says. They've been silent for a while. Shiori gets the sense that something has been decided, but isn't sure what.

"I know that."

"We ought to be getting back."

Kohaku turns in her direction, and Shiori is oddly reminded of the expressions on the faces of the people who saved her from Taibokumaru, physically close, but separated by all the miles of the journey they have yet to finish. Shiori sighs. "If you choose to leave, I am confident that we'll meet again. I have a very long lifespan, you see. Someday you'll be walking around, plagued with memories and regrets, and you'll turn and see my face in a crowd. It is a distinctive face, so even if many, many years have passed, you'll be sure to recognize it. But Sango-san is no longer young, and she can't wait for you forever. She already knows you're here."

Kohaku nods slowly. "Yes, I suppose the time has come for that."

"You want to see her, right?"

"I do, actually. I'd been dreading it...thinking that it would be like tearing all her old wounds open again. But I think—I hope—that maybe you're right. Maybe we're finally ready for this. Hearing her voice again was... I want to see her face."

"Then she will be happy to see you, too." Shiori leads the way, and when the path widens, Kohaku walks by her side.

"What will I tell her about you?"

Shiori takes his hand, and instead of pulling it away, he gives her a small squeeze. "Tell her whatever you want," she says.

"I'll concede," Kohaku says at length, "that sometimes the good can outweigh the bad, but it doesn't overcome it. I don't want to give you false hope. Just because I was underwater, doesn't mean I was drowning."

"I know that," Shiori responds. "If you're not going to drown, it's easy to lie in the water. But isn't it nice to sit in the sun sometimes? Even if in the long run, it doesn't make a difference, and you're not saved. Just for its own sake."

Kohaku smiles at her. "Just as long as you understand."


End file.
